Prototype, method, and experiment for evaluating usability of smart home user interfaces

Abstract

Despite the widespread adoption of smart devices and home automation systems, users still face usability challenges. Additionally, evaluating the usability of smart home systems is not straightforward. Our paper focuses on building a Smart Home Prototype, selecting, and evaluating software User Interfaces (UI). We have chosen the smart home heating system as the basis, but the principles are applicable to other applications. To discuss smart home UIs, it is necessary to understand the components, implementation scenarios, configuration, and operation of smart home systems. Therefore, we devote considerable attention to these topics in the paper. Our smart home system utilizes a Raspberry Pi computer, temperature sensors, servo drives, an Android-based smartphone, and other necessary hardware. We installed and configured open-source software and third-party services on the experimental setup. We provided a brief description of each selected software. We used the Home Assistant operating system, its mobile application, voice assistant Alice, and Telegram chatbot. In our study, we described a methodology for evaluating user interfaces in smart homes and conducted an experiment to assess their usability. The experiment results indicated which interface was more user-friendly and identified the drawbacks of each. In conclusion, we discuss UI features that can improve usability and available options for building a smart home based on capabilities.